


trova la via al mare

by vlieger



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 17:00:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlieger/pseuds/vlieger





	trova la via al mare

This is how they begin: Gigi is the scruffy goalkeeper, too-long hair falling into his eyes and limbs as impossibly quick as the flash of his smile, standing between the posts in the Stadio Ennio Tardini in nineteen ninety-five. Canna is a fierce young defender with strength beyond the measure of his legs, out on that same pitch, and together they are two boys who look at each other with the determined eyes of aspiration and the camaraderie of defender and goalkeeper. 

I'll protect you if you protect me. We'll protect them. 

It's utterly commonplace but at the same time so vividly not-- not looking back on it years later: two Italian boys on a football field who dare at the future with flashing eyes and cleats dug viciously into morning-damp grass, who shout at each other over the heads of the opposition and whose fingers brush by chance in the melee of the penalty box. 

 

Gigi on the cusp of the first team swears loud and often. One day everyone's mother is a whore, the next they're all sons of bitches, and then again it's fuck this, fuck that, the words curling almost curiously on his tongue. It takes Canna three days to realise that Gigi when he talks, really talks, is careful and considered and as wildly intelligent as he is obnoxious. 

It's a bit of an unbalanced scale that way: three days, and then a lifetime.

 

Canna thinks about fucking Gigi for a year before he does. He's only twenty-two, but Gigi is only eighteen, and proud. 

He gets two fingers inside him while he's sucking his dick, on his knees in the changeroom showers, and he knows how he looks, the muscles in his back and his trim waist, he knows how to curl his tongue and make Gigi tip his head back like he is now, groans muffled by the water pooling in his mouth. 

When he scissors his fingers Gigi snaps his gaze down, spitting water and, "Ma che cazzo," twitching but trapped between his dick in Canna's mouth and Canna's fingers in his ass. 

Canna looks up at him through his lashes, silent. 

"Stop," says Gigi, fisting a hand in Canna's hair. 

He tugs and Canna pushes himself to his feet, liking the way Gigi's lip slides from between his teeth as Canna's fingers slide out of his ass. 

Gigi stares down at him, deliberately down, stretching every inch he has, holding Canna's head back. 

He kisses Canna after a moment, all biting, furious things, and says, leaning back at last, rough and enunciated, "Do it."

Canna watches him turn his back, mouth dry, and presses up behind him, and doesn't wait; fucks him hard, hands on his sharp, still-boyish hips.

This is what Canna remembers best about it, afterwards: each time Gigi's head drops, baring the terribly delicate-looking bumps at the top of his spine, hair dripping over his eyes, he brings it up again, muscles clenching above his shoulderblades, moving with Canna's thrusts. 

 

When Gigi is twenty Canna sits in his apartment and watches him cook pasta, and afterwards eats it with him even though Gigi never asked him to stay. Gigi is disconcertingly formal with his manners. He keeps his elbows off the table and chews with his mouth closed and refills Canna's glass of vino rosso from the bottle sitting between them. He catches Canna watching him, halfway through a story about the time he nearly drowned in the Carrione River, all inflections and wandering tangents, and Canna's not sure what else he was supposed to be doing, but Gigi stops and says, "What," and then, "Fuck you," and in the ensuing silence, Gigi glancing off to the side with his mouth clenched angrily and his cheeks tinged the palest pink beneath his stubble, Canna wants simultaneously to laugh and to fuck him. 

Years later, it's a feeling he equates to being something almost like in love.

 

In Sapporo, right up until four days before the tournament starts, Gigi is almost as insufferable as he is determined. 

He tells Canna to fuck off so often that it ends with Canna shoving him against the wall in his room, an arm across the bottom of his neck, hissing, "Fuck _you_." 

He kisses Gigi, holding him there, wet and furious and relentless until Gigi stops trying to shove him off, long after he started kissing him back, and then he pulls away, dropping his arm. 

"Sorry," he says, thumbing over the hollow of Gigi's throat. He only half means it. 

Gigi stares at him. His mouth is red, used-looking, and he's hard. He drops his eyes to Canna's mouth and says, "Fine. Fuck me."

Canna does. Gigi's always had interesting methods of apology. 

 

It's not altogether strange that in the end Canna finishes up at Juve too, three years after Gigi. 

Gigi looks at him with this complicated expression, not quite a smirk and knowing it, and annoyed about it, arms folded, and says, "So you followed me here, then."

Canna bites back a smile and flicks at Gigi’s nose. "Don't flatter yourself, bambino."

Gigi's eyes get comically wide, like he's not sure whether to be angry or offended or both, and this time Canna lets himself smile as wide and stupidly happy as he feels, ducking the cuff Gigi aims at his neck. 

"Too slow." He grins. 

"Too short," Gigi counters, but his mouth is soft, his hands quick, almost grateful, on Canna's pants. 

 

He kisses like he fucks like he keeps goal, always moving, light and then heavy, fluid, a kind of thoughtless deliberateness to his touches. 

His hands are fast enough to keep up with the unfettered flow of his thoughts, their raw unprocessed impulses, and he doesn't think about it until after, the direction of his dives or the slide of his hand over the dip at the top of Canna's ass, but he's always right, even when he misses. It's all the reasons why he's the best. 

Canna has always been the one more nervous in his movements, the one who rethinks and then questions, buzzing and frantic, but he does it with a kind of poise that Gigi lacks, for all his certainty, a particular still set to his jaw, and Gigi finds it endlessly amusing that no one notices what it really is, that he can brush his fingers over the line where Canna's neck curves up into his cheeks and feel something no one else is seeing. 

"They think they know you," he scoffs one time, head bent low. 

 

Germany is unexpectedly beautiful. 

Gigi scoffs at the food and the beer, says, "What kind of plebians prefer beer over wine?" and scoffs at Canna too when Canna says, "What does it matter? You wouldn't touch a drop of it either way."

He says, "That's not the point," jabbing a finger to Canna's sternum. 

Canna says, "Stop trying to find things to complain about."

Gigi tilts his head then and drags Canna to the Deutsches Museum when they're in Munich. "It's not a German thing," he says, peering at the delicate whorls etched into the gold face of a clock. "It's an Italian thing, you see? We have good food, good wine. Of course it's not as good here. The Germans can do science though, look," and he leads Canna with a hand on his elbow to watch the Foucault pendulum swing slow, oddly mesmerising in the quiet, white room. "That," says Gigi impressively, waving a hand, "Is the rotation of the Earth."

Canna looks back at the unostentatiously rotating metal ball on its wire.

"See, the only thing that keeps it swinging is the Earth's movement. The first actual demonstration. All those physicists, they used their equations to prove the theory, but Foucault used a metal ball on a string to show everyone how this planet moves."

Canna smiles at the pendulum and fondly at this, Gigi's predilection for such fragile strength, for effectiveness over showiness, the most knife-edged kind of order. "Like the compass," he says.

Gigi's mouth quirks. "Like the compass," he says. 

 

When they win the World Cup Gigi fucks him, arched over him with his face dipped into the light reflecting off the trophy, and he is beautiful, so beautiful, liquid gold and rasping, rough euphoria, whispering, "We fucking did it," and, "Bello, bello," into Canna's skin, licking the sticky-sweet champagne leftover in the hollows above his collarbones. 

Canna says, "Yeah, yes, _God_ ," and thinks about touching the trophy before he settles his hands on Gigi's shoulders and tastes their victory in the alcohol on his breath, the sweat beading his upper lip, the faint lingering smell of grass in his hair. He comes without a hand on his dick and maybe never catches the breath he loses in that moment.

 

Then he signs with Real. It's not a bad thing, more like one day in a summer string ending, and there is the promise of more, just maybe not quite as inexplicably wonderful.

 

Gigi has old-fashioned, oddly black and white ideas about loyalty. Canna going to play in Spain makes Canna a traitor. It's not so much anything else as it is endearing, unsurprising alongside his forthrightness and his curious little formalities. Canna doesn't tell him this because he's sure to use it as leverage. 

He says, "What do you need in Spain? They don't need you in fucking Spain." He points at Canna. "Does it fucking look like we've got it fucking easy here?"

"Real Madrid is in Spain," says Canna. "Juve isn't my club like it is yours."

Gigi sputters. "Fuck you," he says, and leaves. The door slams, loud and pointed. 

Canna remembers a similar start to a conversation when he shaved his head. "What is this?" Gigi said, folding his arms and raking his eyes over Canna, like the haircut somehow altered everything about his general appearance, to the tips of his fingers and toes. "This is not Italiano. We have hair, no? Maiala." He clicked his tongue. 

"A bald whore?" Canna raised an eyebrow.

Gigi kissed him, hands spread huge and deliberate over Canna's head, calloused fingertips rough against the soft skin dipping beneath the curve of his skull. 

 

The thing about it all is that Canna has more than enough energy to be pissed off at Gigi, but no desire whatsoever. There's something flattering in his anger, in the way he doesn't pass over Canna with veiled assaults like he does the others, smile blandly and say well, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. Gigi at his most raw, most real, is brutal and forthright; the worse it gets, the more he cares.

Canna calls him the morning his flight leaves for Madrid, and Gigi answers with, "Et tu, Brutus?"

"Melodramatic fucker." Canna laughs. 

Gigi doesn't. He says, "Have a nice flight," and Canna feels a sudden sting of something, more weariness than anger. 

He says, "Fuck you," and hangs up tasting something bitter, a little like regret. 

It makes him more angry than Gigi ever could.

 

When Gigi visits him in Spain it's hot, all sticky, sweet air-- like sex, it feels like, his nails cutting sharp through the hazy thickness, through Canna's skin. 

Canna tells him about Madrid, standing by the window in his shorts. It's an expensive hotel view, overlooking the lined-up, lace-like edifices of the Gran Via. He knows Gigi's waiting for him to point them out, some scathing remark at the ready, so he says, "This isn't really Madrid," tapping at the glass, "You have to make an effort, you know?"

Gigi snorts from the bed behind him. He's still naked; Canna can see his faint, watery reflection in the window, stretched and recoiled in some oddly elegant shape, an arm slung beneath his head, dark hair and rough cheeks, slivers of bone tapering his legs at the knee. 

"Let me fuck you," says Gigi. He sits up and Canna sees first the dark jut of his cock, swollen and bruise-coloured, like his mouth, and then his eyes, measuring out the smooth sailing line of his hips. "Let me fuck you," he says again, and licks his lips. 

He does. Canna spreads his thighs over Gigi's lap and lets him fuck up into him, lets him hold Canna with his back to Madrid, a hand splayed over his spine, because his grin is white and oh so sharp when he waits for Canna to come and holds his middle finger up to the window.

It feels like some kind of absolution, as Gigi stutters his own release hissing, "Vaffanculo," over Canna’s shoulder, "Vaffanculo, figlio di puttana."

 

Madrid is resplendent, gold and elegant where Torino is sprawled white and wild beneath pale afternoon skies and dusty purple sunsets. 

There he was Fabio Cannavaro, capitano degli Azzurri, and here there is Beckham, and Raúl, and even Ramos glances at him askance, his first day, jaw ticking. 

He’s not sure he doesn't miss it, but he likes this, proving his worth all over again at thirty-three. 

The Bernabéu is not unfriendly, for all its Spanish stars, the smell of grass and earth hanging damp in the morning air just like in Italy.

 

He thinks about Gigi, when they win La Liga, and it's nothing like pity or regret or even want. 

He watches Iker's hands curling over Beckham's thighs as he holds him up on his shoulders, the way Beckham's eyes are bright and drunk and somehow still so focused, drinking it in like it's water and he's dying, like he knows that for him it doesn't get better than this, and thinks about Gigi's not-really grudging warmth, how they are both still Azzurri, and mostly he is just happy. 

 

What Canna has with him in Spain, as in anyplace else, are his children, his wife. When Gigi calls while Martina's showing him how to fix her hair he doesn't answer. When he calls while he's waiting for Daniela to come out of the bathroom so he can take her to dinner he answers and says, "Fuck off, I'm busy."

Gigi says, "Fuck you, so am I," and hangs up. 

He doesn't need it. What he wants is Gigi calling him in the orange afternoons after training and saying, "It's fucking perfect weather here and we're doing fucking perfect without you, thank you very fucking much, you and your fucking Spain."

Gigi swears when he's angry, and when he's pretending to be angry, and when he's nervous. It took Canna a while to learn the distinctions.

"Hello, Gianluigi," Canna says, squinting at the sky, its imperfect overcast grey. 

"Don't call me Gianluigi," says Gigi immediately. "You're not my mother."

Canna chuckles. "Congratulations," he says. 

"We're back where we belong," Gigi says savagely. "Don't you wish you hadn’t left?"

"We won La Liga," Canna says. "We are still Campioni del Mondo."

"Spanish football is shit," says Gigi. "You play like girls."

"Campioni del Mondo," Canna reminds him. 

Gigi has no answer for that, because beneath the way he is viciously angry, he is viciously happy, and Canna knows this like he knows Gigi, steady like his pulse. 

 

"El hermoso juego," Canna whispers over the swill of red, red wine on his tongue. "We play el hermoso juego, at Real. Not like girls, you fucking arrogant prick."

"Are you speaking Spanish to me, you traitorous piece of shit?" Gigi's eyes are huge, reflecting the fractured neon lights on the street outside.

"Yo quiero joderte." Canna smirks. 

"Fuck you," says Gigi.

"No," says Canna, crawling close across the bed, "Not this time."

 

When Euro comes around it does, for Canna, mess things up and make them easier all at once. He's not ready for it to end yet. He is not immodest, but he knows he'll go out with more dignity than this. He tells Gigi, looking down at his ankle, "I'm going to stay, til South Africa."

Gigi says, "Good," and leaves the room before Canna can get a good look at his face. 

He laughs at the door as it closes behind him and feels lighter for the space he has to breathe, the two years still with something to aim for. 

He doesn't let Gigi fuck him after he watches him let in three goals, lose to the Netherlands in Berne. Gigi wants to, he knows, sucking insistent bruises along the pale inside of his arm. Canna says, "No," and Gigi stops, looks at him, raising an eyebrow. "Like this," says Canna, sitting back against the headboard. "I'm going to fuck you. Don't argue. My ankle."

Gigi stares. His mouth flickers between amusement and annoyance, brow furrowed, and after a silence he settles himself over Canna's dick. "Sex with a cripple," he mutters. "Dio." 

He shakes his head and adds, biting at Canna's jaw, "Don't try to play that card again."

 

"I don't know what's worse," Gigi says, watching Canna lift a box full of Andrea's toys into his house in Torino, "You leaving in the first place, or coming crawling back now."

Canna rolls his eyes. "Drop the act," he says, throwing a stuffed rabbit and turning his back. 

Gigi looks thoughtfully down at the rabbit; caught, of course, in one of his hands. "I'll drop you," he says.

"You won't," says Canna. 

He watches Gigi thumb over the rabbit's velvet nose, the way Gigi's eyes darken as he looks Canna over but doesn't move, and says, mouth curling, smirking, "You hope."

 

They are, then, a catalogue of changeroom showers and away-game hotels-- not unlike the last time, and the time before that. 

In Roma their hotel looks out over the Via Nazionale, and in the morning Canna watches the sky lighten behind the Banca d'Italia. 

"We could fuck," says Gigi, pressing up behind him. The glass is cold against Canna's bare stomach. "Do you think anyone is watching?"

"Go on then," says Canna. 

Gigi doesn't. Canna huffs knowingly. 

He loses Gigi in the hubbub of mingling players after the match. "Where the fuck are you?" he hisses into his phone on the bus, rumbling idle in the carpark. 

"In the Tempio del Divo Giulio," says Gigi promptly. 

"Of course you fucking snuck off to the Forum." Canna rubs his forehead and nods at Ferrara. The bus coughs into motion. 

"Come meet me," says Gigi.

Canna says, "No," and meets him there anyway. He wanders around slowly, hands in his pockets, and stumbles across Gigi leaning back on his palms, legs sprawled, in the long shadows of the Tempio di Saturno. "If we miss the flight," he says mildly, lowering himself onto the ground beside Gigi, and lets the threat hang.

Gigi says, "Shut up," just as mildly and slants Canna a smirk. 

He can't be comfortable on the gravelly ground, but it's like the odd savage grace he's always had, draped across the stones, three day-old stubble softened by the setting sun. 

 

When Canna tells him he's leaving, again, Gigi says, "I don't like playing against you."

He's never lied to Canna, but it's maybe the most honest thing Gigi's ever said to him.

 

In July they are knocked out of the group stages of the World Cup. 

Canna squares his shoulders and marches from the pitch and cannot see, cannot see until Gigi looms before him and says, thumbing over his aching jaw, "They think they know you."

Later he fucks Canna, not fast but hard, deliberate, presses Canna's hands into the wall, palms against his knuckles-- a ghost of what it would be like if holding hands was something they did, like their fingers brushing quick and accidental in the melee of the penalty box. Fucks him until he's finally, finally still. 

Gigi does not swear, does not make a sound, teeth closed over the swell of Canna’s shoulder into his neck.

 

On the plane trip home he sits in the aisle seat next to Gigi by the window, and Gigi's head lolls precariously close to his shoulder until he shifts deliberately and settles against the glass. 

"I don't mind," says Canna quietly. He rolls his eyes to alleviate the strange swooping low in his belly.

Gigi snorts. "You're getting soft, old man," he says, eyes closed. 

He's silent for a long time, the dark crescent shape of his lashes fluttering through the orange light from the window, and Canna thinks he's fallen asleep until he stretches out and hooks an ankle under Canna's, firm and purposeful. 

Canna stills. Then he mutters, "Yeah, _I'm_ getting soft."

Gigi rolls his head against the window, doesn't open his eyes, and smiles. 

 

(He flies out to Dubai alone, ahead of his family. Torino is damp, dusty pale in the early morning as he stands on his doorstep and tries not to think about the place he's leaving. He hefts the weight of his bag with his palm balanced over his shoulder and pulls out his phone to call for a taxi just as Gigi's black Audi pulls up by the curb. 

"You've changed your tune," he says, sliding into the passenger seat. 

"I haven't," says Gigi. 

He watches Canna watch his house before he eases the car out onto the street. 

At the airport he says, drumming his fingers on the wheel, "I'm not coming in."

"Okay," says Canna. Gigi's windows are tinted. He leans over and kisses the side of Gigi's mouth, fingers tightroped along the edge of his jaw. 

Gigi is still, for a moment, so still, and then he turns into Canna's mouth, fast and wet, and whispers, "Fuck you," his thumb digging what Canna knows will be a bruise above his collarbone.

"Soon," says Canna when he pulls back. Gigi's mouth is red, slick. Not intentionally cruel, but Canna feels the stab of it in his gut nonetheless. "Yes?"

"No," says Gigi. 

"Maybe," says Canna. 

Gigi's mouth twists. "Maybe," he allows. 

"See," says Canna. "I'll watch your matches. Forza Italia."

"Not anymore," says Gigi. 

"Always," says Canna. "I'm going to kiss you again, okay?"

"Christ," says Gigi, but he leans into it, licks into it, damp on the inside of the rain-soaked car.)


End file.
